Damn History / Issue 85 / December 2024

Some of you already know about my dislike of end-of-the-year “best books” lists. No publication or reviewer has passed an eye over more than the tiniest fraction of books published in any genre during 2024. How can they know what’s best? They can’t.

In that spirit – having read around three dozen books this past year – I offer my favorite popular-history books from 2024, including a couple published years ago. They’re probably not the best books of the year, but I like and recommend them.

• The Wide Wide Sea by Hampton Sides: A fast-moving account of the final voyage of Captain James Cook.

• You Have to Be Prepared to Die Before You Can Live by Paul Kix: Dramatic background to the 1963 Birmingham civil rights campaign.

• The Dragon from Chicago by Pamela D. Toler: The exciting life of reporter Sigrid Schultz.

• The Infernal Machine by Steven Johnson: An ambitious tale of the rise of anarchism, terrorism, and forensic science.

• The Wax Pack by Brad Balukjian: A man’s journey to track down and meet all of the players included in a decades-old pack of baseball cards.

• A Day in the Life of Abed Salama: Anatomy of a Jerusalem Tragedy by Nathan Thrall: Engrossing backstory to a devastating accident and its effect on Palestinian communities.

• Stolen: Five Free Boys Kidnapped into Slavery and Their Astonishing Odyssey Home by Richard Bell: The title tells it all.

• Pachinko by Min Jin Lee: A wonderful historical novel.

Here in Damn History you'll find, as usual, links to good and popularly accessible historical reading, with tips on writing and updates on my own work.

 — Jack El-Hai

Follow me on X at @Jack_ElHai, on Bluesky at @jackelhai.bsky.social, and on Threads at @jackelhai1.

Email me at [email protected]

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Personal Notes

A recent issue of the Lazy Reader newsletter featured my story about a psychiatric patient in love with a delusion.

For a bountiful collection of my popular-history book, audiobook, article, documentary, and podcast recommendations, search X, Bluesky, or Threads for the hashtag #popularhistory.

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Recent Popular History from All Over

You may find some of these articles behind a paywall if you’ve exceeded the publisher’s allowance of free views.

The century-old Espionage Act threatens us today.

“The beach was a dangerous place.”

Pet cemeteries were a revolutionary idea.

The con artist Gaston Means worked hard to concoct his most audacious fraud.

Here’s an obituary for a famous muscleman who bent steel bars around his neck.

An entrepreneurial woman built an unlikely fortune in the frozen north.

A family history researcher finds a social media site for the dead.

The 19th-century Black performer Thomas Dilward inherited the troubling history of minstrel shows.

A recent court filing lays out the history of garbage disposals.

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Resources

Humor is all too rare! For a startling and funny take on events past and present, subscribe to Big News Now.

Writing memoir is not therapy.

Learn to think about history films the right way.

Get your own ancient Ten Commandments tablet, suitable for hanging in a classroom.

“We die only once, and for such a long time!” – Molière

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Housekeeping

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More next month, and thanks for looking. And you are welcome to forward Damn History in its entirety to anyone.

About me: I'm a writer whose beat is history. I've contributed hundreds of articles to such publications as Smithsonian, The Atlantic, The Washington Post Magazine, Wired, Scientific American, Discover, GQ, Longreads and many others. My books include The Lost Brothers: A Family’s Decades-Long Search, The Lobotomist: A Maverick Medical Genius and His Tragic Quest to Rid the World of Mental Illness, Non-Stop: A Turbulent History of Northwest Airlines, and The Nazi and the Psychiatrist: Hermann Goering, Dr. Douglas M. Kelley, and a Fatal Meeting of Minds at the End of WW2. I often give presentations to groups of writers, readers, and others.

Please feel free to get in touch.